Lisa and I knew as soon as we got our bikes that we would have to name them. I immediately knew who I was going to name mine after. My uncle Fred.
Some of you may have known Uncle Fred and some of you may have just heard stories. I remember Fred being extravagant, full of life, stupidly spontaneous and extremely kind hearted. This was a man who worked hard for what he had and lived his life to the very fullest…to say the least. He played a huge role in my mom’s childhood and of course ours as well. Uncle Fred passed away from a heart attack not too long ago and is a big reason we chose the Heart and Stroke foundation to raise money for.
Many of my memories of Uncle Fred were from the cottage. I remember him feeding all the fish hot dogs from the dock. I remember catching frogs to show him and he would put them in his beer to get them drunk and watch them hop sideways. These are very tame stories, but you never knew what kind of adventure you could get into when you were with Fred.
He used to fall asleep on the couch all the time and we would take this opportunity to paint his toenails and fingernails obnoxious pinks and reds. Usually he wouldn’t notice until we were somewhere public, and even then he didn’t care, as long as we had fun. When my Uncle Fred passed away, we all flew to Toronto for his funeral. It was more of a party than a funeral, which was exactly what Fred would have wanted. I remember walking into the wake to say goodbye to Uncle Fred and being overwhelmed with sadness. Until I walked up to him and saw, that yes his toenails were painted and yes he was going to buried that way. It made us cry and then laugh until we cried more. Only Uncle Fred.
His spirit has been with me throughout my ride across Canada. There have been many, many situations when I should have fallen into traffic or at the very least get extremely hurt…and somehow, I managed to pull out of it. Yesterday we got our bikes tuned up and I thought that I should paint Fred’s toenails pink. With what I had to work with, I did the next best thing…
Beautiful Pink handle bars!! Just for you Uncle Fred.
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